Super Raiden

~ SUPER RAIDEN ~

Seibu Kaihatsu / Hudson Soft

Super CD-ROM

1992

Raiden veterans will find themselves in familiar territory when they begin playing Super. Actually, just about everything will seem the same, from the bullet-heavy gameplay to the unimpressive visuals.

For this release, however, the game was blessed with a red book soundtrack. (This was no "given"; just ask owners of Altered Beast CD.) The instrumentation is excellent, quite reminiscent of Hellfire-S's. Unfortunately, the compositions themselves are far from special, with the exceptions of the Stage 2 theme (which is fantastic) and parts of the Level 10 number.

And yes, I did say "Level 10." While Raiden was originally an eight-board affair, Super tacks on two additional stages, a flooded Area 9 and a hard-as-hell final stretch.

The problem here isn't with the new stages themselves; in fact, the last level will be appreciated by shoot 'em up experts for being so challenging. The real issue is that Raiden already felt long as it was. Even the best of shooters start to push their luck when they extend beyond a reasonable six or seven stages (the most ardent Blazing Lazers fans usually concede that it takes too long), and Raiden was never exactly the strongest vertical around to begin with. It takes skills to make it to Level 10 in this game--and it takes incredible fortitude to begin the long journey anew after inevitably failing on that level. At least there's a new bit of ending as a reward this time... but don't expect much from it.

Super Raiden will be a nice pickup for folks who are already Raiden fans and who'd like to experience the challenge of the new stages and the novelty of playing the game with red book audio. For those who haven't yet played a PCE Raiden and insist on doing so, my advice is to go with this one since there doesn't seem to be much difference in cost between the two renditions these days. And one more bit of advice: if you make it to the last boss, and if you think you've got him beaten, well... you haven't.

So don't let your guard down.